Happy New Year

Wishing everyone who visits a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2014 in whichever way you desire, with time to quilt to your hearts content throughout the year ahead.

For me I am working through Christmas and New Year as retail no longer stops for any one, only a few exceptions to this and they are blessed days for families.
My DH and I have no family in Whangarei so Christmas morning was spent on the phone talking with our
families in Christchurch. We then spent the rest of Christmas day with close friends and their family, it was a wonderful feeling to be welcomed into what was a family gathering of 3 generations.

I have had the last 3 days off work, return tomorrow for New Year's day and work through to Saturday night so no seeing the New Year in for me tonight. However I can now note that our neighbors two doors down decided that 11.45pm to 1am was the ideal time for massive fireworks so we were wide awake and watching TV.

Because of  ongoing renovations our only Christmas decoration this year was Esther's Red December table runner with it's usual accompaniment, a my Christmas bowl with  candle on our coffee table.

The Runner works perfectly with this old Red and Green bowl and 3 light candle edged with decorations.
Bowl is about to be wrapped in glad wrap and put away for next year.

Why no tree!!! I decided I did not want a tree covered in renovation dust as this is our  house at the moment.

Front door where our welcoming Christmas wreath would normally go.

Front door from the inside, wall opened to spare room

Spare bedroom, eventually there will be an en suite off our bedroom at the far end.

New wardrobe where old front door was.

All recycled from the original room.

Computer now sharing the lounge, is fine if no one wants to watch TV. 

You can see where we took the side window out and extended the room.

Our new rear extension is planned for next summer so the computer will be here for a while Lol.

I want it shifted to the other end of the buffet

.

On the good side, I have finished staining the trellis fence around our new deck 

and this grand old matriarch of the street is flowering again.

What a beautiful view from the couch is this Jacaranda tree planted in 1971

More foliage than flowers this year, but she is still beautiful

Steve decided to step the trellis panels and gate at this end of the deck so we don't feel so enclosed.
We saved the bottle brush but it will need regular pruning to keep access to the gate.
We also decided after strong winds and masses of leaves on the deck to raise all the trellis 4 inches so that we can sweep out easily. the short wall still to .do

Our original front terrace has become Steve's building /dump site.

Side window from the lounge is still on the terrace, it will temporarily go into the spare room as the bedroom window has to come out and eventually be replaced with the one from my sewing room, our en suite bathroom will  be installed in the far end of this room. Our deck will continue in a dogleg around this terrace. The metal grid fence keeps Kelly from escaping until we build the rest of the low trellis fencing.

To quilting, I am so happy that I completed part 7 of LE before the start of the New Year.

I feel it has got airier has  I have progressed with the corners.

Not unhappy with that as it is far easier to add if need be than to try and take away.

This has been the most wonderful fabric to use for Broderie Perse by machine.

I should be back working on Lily Rose but it is still pinned to my design wall. Instead I have brought  out my oriental WIP, a mosaic wall hanging of Bamboo as suddenly finishing our bedroom may be only a few months away.

I have now trimmed this wall hanging down, originally it was going  to cover a high window and needed the width but now it will be above our bed head when we redo our bedroom to take my oriental quilt so I have been able to reduce the background. The Japanese script is for the 4 seasons.

According to my DH the wall this was destined for will now house that big window from the spare room so no space there any longer. I.'m now glad I didn't finish it last year.

Once again,

Happy New Year to everyone, and may all your dreams come true

Jenny